=Jean asked:
>What is the relationship of two people whose mother's are half-sisters
>(same father -- different mother). Are they first cousins or first
>half-cousins?

Bob wrote:
<They are first cousins.
<Despite the common misconception, a "cousin" requires descent from only one

common ancestor. There is therefore no such thing as a "half cousin." >

Gee, this is news to me! "Cousin," used generically, could be various
relationships; but everything I have studied on the subject contends that
"first cousin" has always been a precise degree of kinship (genetically and
in traditional church calculations) --with qualifiers such as "first cousin
once-removed" and "half-first cousins" to identify relationships that do not
carry the full complement of genetic kinship one would get if the cousin's
mother were a full sibling rather than half-sibling of one's own mother.

I checked this just now against a few genetic sites on line. Some of those
that define half-first cousin are